


A Feeling Like You've Been Here Before

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Season/Series 09, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dogs, Fallen Gabriel, Flirting, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Oral Sex, Road Trips, Season/Series 09, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 03:03:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1712582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam heads west. He remembers, when he left for Stanford, the way the ocean and sunshine could wash the dark out of him and let him start anew.</p><p>Takes place in early Season 9.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Feeling Like You've Been Here Before

**Author's Note:**

> As has been happening lately, I started this fic during the season and didn't finish it until after. I started this fic around or before 09.11. I honestly can't remember at this point. But basically it diverts from canon after Gadreel is out of Sam and before Dean gets the Mark from Cain. This supposes that Sam and Dean keep working for a while after Gadreel's out of the picture.
> 
> Or something like that! Whatever! ~wiggly alternate reality fingers~
> 
> I do not own the rights to these characters, the setting, the show, etc. No harm is intended.

Sam has to get away from Dean again.

Things feel better. He's honest about that, they do.

It's just, sometimes now, after an intense hunt, he feels that he should put some space between himself and his brother and take time out to do something or go someplace new. He's encouraging Dean to do the same. Go see a football game in person or a band he likes a couple songs from. Dean's even gone to a comic convention on his own since he couldn't exactly dial up Charlie in Oz. They're stretching their legs, socially. And it's working, by degrees. But this time Sam just books it out of Kansas without a destination in mind.

Sometimes Sam just wakes up in the passenger seat of the Impala from one of the images Gadreel left him with: Dean turning into a different person in that cabin and allowing Sam to be possessed, Dean lying to Cas and kicking him out, snippets of conversations Dean and Gadreel had without him, Kevin--

Sam heads west. The west coast has a distinct shine on it that he remembers from when he was young and very recently freed. He remembers his first big weekend at Stanford, getting to know the girls and finding out who in the dorms had cars and who had easy access to kegs and ignoring his homework _just this once_ to go socialize with the living. Wandering over the sand to the shore and closing his eyes when the water moved over his ankles, absorbing the ocean's endless energy and the sunlight above.

The west coast, then. And after that, who knows? The contiguous US can get claustrophobic when you feel like you've been to every corner of it. He thinks about contacting someone to get credentials that are good enough to get him in and back out of Mexico. Follow the coast down.

After he's out of Kansas, he takes his time, drives the speed limit. It's another day before he hits Oregon and he pauses there. The sign for The Oregon Motel is ugly, corrugated plastic, yellow with age and all but one of the lights in the parking lot is out.

He could drive on, but doesn't.  
It looks sleepy and that feels comforting.

No one is at the front desk, and he rings the bell, switches his bag to his left shoulder because the right is still twinging from a hit he took earlier in the week. When his eyes open up after a wince the clerk is there and the clerk is goddamn _Gabriel_.

"Oh my god," falls out of his mouth, and that's an extremely bad habit he's got.

It's not an unoccupied vessel, that much is clear because the person staring back at him is stunned in equal measure.

They're both very still.

Gabriel shakes his head as if to clear it. "I really shoulda figured this would happen one day."

Sam can feel his mouth click shut. "Um. Yeah. Motels are kinda Winchester magnets," he admits. "What are you _doing_ here?" It suddenly occurs to him that he should possibly be bracing himself for a punchline.

(Let's be real: he should probably be shielding his crotch.)

Gabriel full-body shrugs and his hands fall, smacking down on the counter. "I work here."

"Wow."  
"Yeah."  
"Uh."  
"Yeah."  
"Huh."  
Gabriel squints. "Yeah."

Another moment passes, and Sam senses that it's getting a little tense. He feels his throat tighten. "Look. I'm uh," he points behind himself. "I'm gonna go, I'll just," he shrugs, "find another place for the night."

Gabriel catches on enough to look uncomfortable.

"Well you. Hey," he says kinda softly, "you don't have to do that."

"NO. No, I think I definitely do."

Gabriel frowns and squints at him again. "Why?"

Sam sighs and rubs his eyes and shrugs again and, fuck, he doesn't know. This is, like, generally a really awkward thing and he's not about to--

Well, you know, it's kind of the same principle as getting your best friend as a server at a restaurant, or standing in their line in the grocery store or something. You don't expect them to hook you up with a nice spot or free food, though it's definitely not the same deal as it is with any other customer in the store. There's a weird knowledge, a connection, and--

Not that Gabriel is a _friend_ of his, by any means, he just--

You know what?  
Sam left the bunker to get away from things he couldn't handle right now. And he can't handle this.

Not only is Gabriel supposed to be dead, but now he's _not dead_. And he seems to be stuck on earth like every other angel. So this is a problem.

Goddamnit, he was totally not ready to face any fucking problems tonight.

When his hands fall away from his eyes, Gabriel is leaning on the counter with a really dubious look and he's just holding out a keyring.

"Take it, Sam. You look like you could sleep."

"You think I'm seriously gonna sleep with _you_ lurking in the vicinity?"

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Oh, I'm hurt," he doesn't even feign hurt. "It's not how you think it is. Take the fucking key and you can run screaming out of town after you've had your eight hours."

They stand there in silence for so long, Gabriel not retracting the offer and Sam not moving to leave, that eventually Sam feels like he has to take it.

So he does, carefully, his hand stuttering out in front of him to grab the key.

Gabriel turns to the check-in computer. "I'm putting you in as Gretchen Wieners because your hair is full of secrets and I'll comp your room 'cause you complllllained...." he scrolls through the options, then clicks. "You complained about the smell."

"Does it smell?" Sam feels compelled to ask.

"No more than any other dive you've crashed in, I'm sure. Go ahead," he dismisses Sam with a wave. "Flee." He goes back to filling out things on the reservation screen.

Sam tilts his head, ready to ask something else, and abruptly decides not to.

He high-tails it out of there and back to the car. Room 8 is close enough that he doesn't have to move it to another spot in the parking lot. He only brings one bag around to the trunk, stuffs it with just the essentials (in case a fucking cartoon or something comes alive and attacks him in the night), and that way he can just blaze right out of town, with or without that single bag. He'll sleep with the car keys in his fucking pocket if he has to.

Sam checks the whole room and nothing is awry. It truly doesn't smell as bad as some of the places he's slept in. He sits on the bed. Nothing crawling. It's soft and doesn't puff mold spores or dust on impact.

Then he gives serious thought to calling Cas.  
Then he gives serious thought to calling Dean.  
Then there's a knock on the door.

The peep hole is cracked, he can't see through it, so he opens the door with caution, reaching behind him for his gun.

Gabriel is turning away, out of the slight breeze, his hands cupped to light a cigarette. He wanders away a little to kick a couple of patio chairs from nearby, starts dragging them over when the fire catches.

He plops down on a chair in front of Sam's room.

"I'm on break," he says.

Sam can't help it, he really is curious. He shifts the gun back into place and reaches over to grab his Diet Coke out of his bag. He hauls the other chair to the opposite side of the door, so they're at least four feet away from each other, and drops into it.

Gabriel must think he's Johnny Depp or something because those are no-filter Lucky Strikes. Talk about your hair being full of secrets.

He doesn't know if this Gabriel, now, the night desk clerk, would laugh at that. He doesn't want to ask him what's been going on or how long he's been here or how much he needs the money.

He doesn't want to know if he's not okay. He doesn't want the responsibility of helping him.

Gabriel left them to face the apocalypse on their own. And he pops up at a no-name motel in the middle of nowhere, Oregon, for no reason at all.

Sam doesn't give a shit about Gabriel's well-being. He just wants to make certain that nothing is gonna pop out in the middle of the night and attempt to infect and/or exert undue force upon his genitals.

He stretches the long day of driving out of his cramped legs, crosses and uncrosses them out in front of himself, leaning back.

"Hooow's your broooother?" Gabriel draws the question out long.

Sam blows out an unexpected, exasperated breath.

"Still a dick, then," he infers from the reaction, "Okay. How's _my_ brother? Still _sucking_ that dick?"

"Ugh," Sam groans. "Don't- I don't want that image- stop it."

Gabriel shrugs and exhales a plume that goes purple in the deep dark of the unlit parking lot.

After a minute of screwing and unscrewing the bottle cap on his soda, it finally bursts forth: "Where the hell have you been?"

Gabriel takes the time to finish his cigarette, aims, and tosses the butt into a shallow puddle where it sizzles out. "Nowhere for a long time. Dead, I'm pretty sure. But I come back and I've got shit for wings and my grace is at half power and like, pppth. Why even bother." He slumps further in his chair.

"D'you--" Sam's not sure if he should ask this question. It burns in his throat anyway. "Do you think this whole thing will bring any of the other dead angels back?"

"I. don't. know. what _'this'_ \--" Gabriel gestures expansively, then crosses his arms, tucks them around himself, "--whole thing is. I haven't met any of my brothers or sisters and I'd actually like to keep it that way. Why? Seen any other troubling resurrections?"

None that Sam would shudder to think of, no. Not Zachariah or Hester or Uriel. Neither Michael nor Lucifer seems to have crawled up from their cage. He doesn't know how many other angels Cas put down in his godhood, but they know that at least Ezekiel died and stayed dead.

"Mine wasn't exactly natural, if that helps," Gabriel fills in. "Pretty sure..." in the gauzy light of the shaded motel window, Sam can see him purse his lips. "Pretty sure it was a blood spell," he finishes, quiet.

Kali. Sam remembers her, vaguely. Gabriel had protected her; she'd resurrected him. It makes sense.

"She just leave you here?" he asks, his tone low, naturally matching to Gabriel and the hushed night.

"Yep," he pops the P. "Delightful. I'm so glad to be back."

"You, uh. Seems like you've got a job, though. A little stability."

Gabriel stares off into nothing for a while longer before rising. "That's my 15 minutes. I have to go do the paper order."

Sam rises, too, but the metal chair legs grate on the concrete as he does.

"See you around, Samsquatch."

"Hey, wait. You're not even curious? You don't even wanna know what happened? What this is all about?"

Gabriel aborts the turn he was taking back down the sidewalk, towards the main office. He stares at Sam, looking bored still.

"It was. It was Metatron. It was this, this spell thing he pulled on Cas and--"

"Not interested, no. Not interested in how the Winchesters won't just let the fucking world end, thanks. I'm good. I've got a vending machine where they overstock the KitKats for me and an apartment with a dog. And no one bothers me."

Sam's jaw clenches.  
This is the Gabriel he knew before. The one with his head in the sand who only came up for air just to kick Sam around for a while.

He doesn't get the opportunity to snap, 'Right,' or to change his mind and rage at him, rub his face in all the chaos he's so conveniently missed out on. Gabriel just walks away and Sam only watches. There's the distant 'ding' of the front office door and the dead silence of night.

He can get some sleep. Get out of here in the morning. And if he ever passes through Oregon again, he can keep driving lest Gabriel lose this job and end up at a gas station, a coffee house, a movie theatre or something, munching popcorn while taking tickets. Avoid the state at all costs.

Sam spins and lets himself back into his room. He hangs an herb or two over the door to prevent passage. Lifts a corner of the wallpaper near the floor and sketches some anti-angel sigils under it. Then goes a thin line of salt below the doors and windows. He sets his alarm for an earlier time than usual.

He'll drive straight out of here in the morning.

«»

The alarm isn't quite early enough.  
There's a knocking at the door. Repeated and persistent.

Sam's shoulders crack and creak as he hauls himself outta bed. He pulls a pair of jeans on over his boxers but doesn't bother to cover his undershirt with a button-up.

The knocking goes rhythmic by the time he gets to the door and there's Gabriel knocking a knuckle of each hand carefully, trying to keep coffees he's holding from sloshing out from under their lids and managing to be annoying at the same time.

He holds up the left cup.  
Sam smirks, "Uh-huh," and takes the right.

"Suit yourself," Gabriel says. His eyes trail down the door frame to the bottom and his eyes narrow as if he can see the sigils on the wall.

Sam heaves this _gigantic_ sigh. He hands the coffee back over and goes to get a marker out of his bag. He lifts the wallpaper and crosses out each sigil. Yanks the strings on the herbs tucked above the door to bring them down.

"Such a warm welcome," Gabriel mock-marvels and steps in, handing Sam his coffee back.

"Are you here to make sure I fuck off before your boss gets in?"

"No. I don't care. I just quit."

"You _just_ quit, just now?" Sam drops back to sit on the corner of his bed rather than loom over Gabriel.

He shrugs. "Motel clerk seems like a dangerous job to have in a world fulla hunters."

"And you just _quit your job_ , just like that? On a whim?"

Gabriel takes the lid off his coffee and tosses it in the kitchenette sink. "Have you met me?"

True.

"Where you headed?" Gabriel asks.

"Nowhere."

"No, yeah, I totally buy that. Where are you headed, Sam? What's in town? Who's eating people this week?"

"Nothing. Really. I was passing through."

"Yeah? You headed north or south?"

"Why do you care?"

"I'm coming with."

"No, you're not."

Gabriel only stares at him.

"No, you're _not_ ," Sam repeats.

Gabriel's eyebrow only slinks up a fraction as he sips his drink.

"What about your apartment and your dog? And getting another job?"

"I don't need a job. I have investments. I was killing time."

"At a no-tell motel. At _this_ dump? You were killing time _extending customer service?_ "

"I never said I was actually nice to the shady douchebags who show up here. For all you know, this place won't even exist when you start driving away from it."

Sam slaps his hand over his face and starts trying to rub the numbness and sleep out of it.

"What the hell do you want from me?"

"A vacation."

Sam peeks through his fingers at him.

Gabriel raises three fingers to swear, "Scout's honor. What, I can't wanna hang with an old buddy?"

"Oh, we're buddies now," Sam whispers in disbelief.

Gabriel pulls his lips to the corner and pushes a breath out his nose.

"I _can't_ anymore, Sam. Whatever you're thinking, whatever you _assume_ I'm going to trick or torture you with, I'm probably not capable of it. I've got the standard, run-of-the-mill grace of a common messenger. My wings are shredded." He clicks his fingers a few times. "See? Nothing."

"Come on. You don't even like me. You just mess around with my head for kicks!"

Gabriel's voice drops. A glint of old and wise in it. "Never for kicks, Sam. There was always a reason."

There was always a reason, yeah. A message, even if Sam couldn't agree or didn't like it.

Sam sets the coffee on the floor between his feet and curls over to stretch his arms, pop his back. Rotates his head to crack his neck.

"Wow. Somethin' happened to _you_ ," Gabriel observes, squinting again, probably seeing past the blood and bone to the important parts.

Sam sits for another minute, picks up the coffee, opens and sniffs it. Nothing smells amiss.

A sip proves it way too sweet. He really had taken coffee Gabriel'd made for himself.

"I'm just driving down the coast. I just came to see the ocean," Sam says, tired.

"So we're both taking time off. Great," Gabriel gives an easy shrug.

Sam sits still for another long moment.

"Why?" he asks.

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Why not."

Sam moves slow getting ready to leave the room. His shower is quick but nothing else is. He packs the room at a leisurely pace because, at least in the same room, he can keep an eye out for shenanigans and doesn't feel vulnerable, like his back is turned. Also, this is his damn holiday from the rush of leaving town and hauling ass like they always do. He feels like taking his sweet damn time.

Gabriel smokes a cigarette in the room. Sam's credit card isn't on file so he decides he doesn't care. He eventually wanders out and waits by the car for Sam to check the room for anything left behind. It's a brokeass old SUV. The passenger door, it turns out, doesn't even lock.

"Let's go by my place first so I can get my dog," Gabriel says.

Sam just turns down the streets where he's told to.

They walk up two flights of stairs and as he's unlocking the door, they hear a whine. "This is Cocoa Puffs," Gabriel says. And opening the door reveals the snout of a brown dog.

"It is _not_ ," Sam smiles.

Gabriel grins back.  
"C'mere Cocoa," he coaxes in a low, sweet voice.

The terrier gets excited at the greeting, at Gabriel's enthusiastic pawing all over her. Her tail wags like crazy.

Gabriel leads the dog back in and attaches a leash to her. "I'm just gonna grab some stuff. You wanna take her out before we're all trapped in that rustbucket together?"

Sam accepts the lead and crouches down to Cocoa Puffs's level.

She's a mild dog, cautiously interested in him. After a sniff she accepts being petted.

"Hi, Cocoa. I'm sorry you have such a silly name." he murmurs to her. "You wanna go outside?"

Sam looks back through the dark apartment. All the shades are down but there's bright whites and yellows and greens in the decor and he bets, after sunrise, in the light of day, this is a really nice, sunny place.

He takes Cocoa back out and downstairs. There's some undeveloped land, a bit of a woodsy area off to the right that Cocoa seems to lead him to. Sam follows. She does her business and wanders a bit. Growls at a frog, then follows it, sniffing after.

"Gonna get mud on your seats," Gabriel sounds amused at the prospect when he appears out of nowhere next to Sam.

"Not really my car," Sam shrugs and hands over the leash. "Here," he trades it for one of the bags Gabriel is carrying.

"Ever the gentleman," he smiles and goes to pick up Cocoa.

If they leave the windows open some, Cocoa likes to bark out of them into the wind, but that seems the only time she's really interested in making a ruckus. She jingles around on the back seat and sometimes pokes around the center console so either of them get wet dog nose on their elbows. They reach back and pet her for a bit and she's back at the window again.

Gabriel doesn't seem to wanna hear himself talk for once. Sam starts on his intended route, headed toward the coast and then south, and there's no comment on it. He wonders how long that will last, how long before Gabriel's gotta have his opinion on the journey heard. But he only leans back in his seat and crosses a boot up to rest on the dash' and watches the world go by.

Once they're a ways down I-5, Gabriel simply concedes, "Hm. Guess you weren't secretly on a hunt."

"Why would I bother hiding it?" Sam wonders aloud. "Whatever it was, you'd probably gank it easier than I could."

"Depends on who it was," Gabriel shrugs.

And Sam thinks, well, shit. That's right. Because if it had been an angel he was after... Yeah. Not likely Gabriel would stick around for that fight. He wouldn't endure that, watching Sam hunt down a brother.

He wonders how much Gabriel knows about how the world didn't end. And he's trying not to ask about it. The more questions he sets aside, the more enter his head.

And he doesn't know why he's here, with Gabriel. Why he's doing this.

It could be some slight influence. Could be that Gabriel is subtly _compelling_ Sam to agree to the situation. But it's honestly not a repulsive enough idea for Sam to have to be convinced.

He was almost ready to be angry with Gabriel last night before he'd dropped the easy truth: he simply hadn't been around to help with the Showdown at Stull, even if he'd wanted to. He wasn't resurrected until after the fall, when he popped up without his wings to help him.

For all he'd done in the past, yeah, Sam could get mad at him. He still has recurring- _recurring_ nightmares about some of Dean's more gruesome deaths in Broward County. And then. Well.

There hadn't been a body. Not any bodies. Sam had watched the news and the mystery of the missing people who had been traced to Muncie, Indiana had persisted. There were police photos of the mysteriously clean, new rooms. The gore left in the kitchen with no apparent victims. Abandoned cars in the parking lot. The charred ballroom with the strange pattern burned into the floor.

That's all he'd known up until now. That Gabriel had sacrificed himself and, like with Ellen and Jo, it was for nothing. Nothing stopped until Sam got Satan's grace in a stranglehold and took a dive into the cage, clinging to it.

Gabriel had treated them raw in the past and then turned it around at the end of his life. Sam didn't have to like him, but he could be grateful.

He's quiet for another hour. He's been laying low. He's got a cute, happy dog. He doesn't seem to want any trouble.

Sam doesn't know where this is going, but he can give Gabriel the benefit of the doubt for a while.

Sam turns the radio on, eventually, and lets a country station play low. He's listened to all the radio there is to listen to in every state, in the time he's driven on his own. He likes a lotta different music and he likes to drive to country. If it bothers Gabriel, he doesn't let on. He thinks, eventually, to offer to let him change it if he is, but just when he's about to offer, Gabriel finally speaks.

"You know, it's kinda like when..." he pauses. "I guess maybe it's like we were both in the foxhole together. Or maybe not even that. Like we both went through a bank robbery and we didn't even know each other in passing and you thought I was gonna get us all killed with my smart mouth and I thought you were gonna get us all killed with your stubbornness. But we were both wrong. And just. We can talk, Sam. We don't have to be antagonists or enemies or cautiously distrustful of one another, okay? Even if you don't think we could be friends."

Sam absorbs that for a minute. He disagrees only in that he has plenty of reason not to trust Gabriel. And nothing he could manage to pull against an angel, even one with weakened wings and a weakened grace, could compare with what Gabriel could still wallop him with.

"Okay," Gabriel says after a long time without a response. "Fine."

"No, I mean," Sam shakes his head and signals to move around a big rig, "we can be civil. I just," he shrugs.

"You can't trust me," Gabriel says, a little peeved. "After all I gave up for you g--"

" _All you gave up for us_ ," Sam laughs and his eyes go wide. "Yeah. All you gave up at the last minute after doing nothing but bullying us around beforehand."

"Thanks for belittling my sacrifice of self. No! Air it all out, Sam! Go ahead!"

"You killed my _brother_ ," Sam nearly shouts, his voice a solid mass in the small space. "You killed my brother over and over and then you're like, no, you know what, I'm not taking part in this because _I can't watch my brothers die_....? Hypocrite much? Fucking seriously? Look, I will admit that you helped us in the end, but it shouldn't have had to take an act of imprisonment on our part to get you to fucking respect our free will, Gabriel, because that's what you were doing. You wanted us to give up our free will and give in to destiny because you didn't want your brothers to get hurt, but if one of us had to kill the other -- if I had had to kill Dean or he'd had to kill me -- that was just fine and fucking dandy in your book."

Sam trails off because Cocoa is giving little yelps and nosing at Gabriel's elbow. He makes no response, just turns a little to pull Cocoa up and into his lap for a while.

"And," Sam concludes in a calmer, but no less firm, voice, "you should have trusted us. Because we didn't hurt them. They're locked up and they're alive and nobody had to die except, you know, _**me and Adam**_. And as far as unfair treatment goes, I'd say since he's the innocent still locked in the cage with two egomaniacal archangels, _he's_ the one who got the shit end of the stick. So don't talk to me about what kind of treatment you deserve out of hand. You're the one who's still running."

"Oh. Really. And what is this, exactly?" Gabriel motions at the car with the hand that's not petting Cocoa.

"This is a 'vacation,'" Sam pronounces carefully, pointed, an echo of what Gabriel had demanded of him this morning. "Dean needs some time without me. We do this every once in a while. I'll see him in a couple weeks. I've never quite managed to keep my head in the sand while the world's falling to pieces. Unlike some other people I could name. Angels. Some other _angels_ I could name." He keeps his eyes on the road.

It's quiet for a while.

"It's alright," Gabriel says at last, waving it all off. "It's alright. You know what? I'm gonna get you ripped, I'm gonna loosen up whatever has you screwed up so tight. We're gonna make out, and it's gonna be fine. So it's alright," he repeats again. "Say whatever you gotta say." Looks back out toward the window. The tags on Cocoa's collar jingle as she settles into him.

Sam's at a loss. He gasps and kinda twitches and kinda tsks in disbelief.

"What?" Gabriel looks back up at him. "What is this if not a golden opportunity to stick to you like glue for a few days and convince you of my many charms?" he says, like it's just facts. "As long as you're willing to be stuck with me, I've got at least that much of an in. A little alcohol to smooth the way and-"

"A little of the old black magic?" Sam quotes, eyebrow cocked, dubious and amused.

"You want it. You're down for it. All shapes and sizes. I've seen inside your brains before, Sammy."

"Don't. It's _Sam_."

" _Sam_ ," he dutifully corrects himself.

They watch the road roll under them for a while.

"I didn't eat breakfast. You wanna eat breakfast?" Sam asks, feeling a little bit like an ass. He was willing to be civil one minute and the next he was hollering. He doesn't know what that is. He doesn't feel nearly as angry all the time as he used to. And Gabriel did give up his life for them.

And, just looking at him now, he _has_ changed.

"I could always eat," Gabriel says. "Someplace with a patio, though. Cocoa's hungry too, aren't you Cocoa?"

Cocoa wriggles, tail wagging, pleased.

«»

Gabriel pays for breakfast. Or at least Sam assumes he does, since he sends Sam and Cocoa away for a walk before they get back in the car.

Gabriel pays for fuel and for snacks at the gas station. For drinks at the vending machines when they stop to stretch their legs and play with Cocoa in the damp grass. He buys himself a new pack of Luckys which Sam snatches out of his hand, crumples, and lobs into a trash can at a rest stop because he probably can't get addicted to anything and was just using them to do something with his hands. Or dealing with some sort of oral fixation.

He steps back and throws up his hands in surrender, rolls his eyes, like, _excuuuuse me_.

"Seriously, Gabe," Sam snaps. "You're gonna poison your dog. You're supposed to take care of her."

Gabriel gets to preen at being addressed with a nickname as long as he promises not to bring any more cancer sticks into the car.

They didn't dally in Portland and Sam wouldn't stop anywhere near Grant's Pass. Gabriel didn't ask but Sam found himself outlining things, anyway. Dragons. And outside Portland, to the south, the original Croatoan outbreak. That one Gabriel knew of, vaguely. But he didn't know Eve had broken the surface of the world. Sam glossed over that, too. Unsure if he should be the one to tell Gabriel what happened with Cas or if it would be better coming from his own brother.

They drive right out of the state. After all their stops for fuel and food, it's well into the evening before Sam feels a little safer in California. Gabriel pays for the hotel, as well. A real hotel, because he has standards that, at the very least, require the accommodations that an honest-to-god Holiday Inn can provide. Like continental breakfast and nothing crawling up the walls. They don't have to sneak Cocoa in, either. She's able to stay with Gabriel in his room, well down the hall from Sam's.

Sam is pulling some laundry out of his bags and starting a list of things he needs like a new bottle of painkillers, deodorant, etc., and there's a knock on his door.

Gabriel pays for dinner, too.

«»

They skip down the coast in fits and starts, a few miles, a day at a time. If Sam wants to hike a little in the soggy forests, Gabriel and Cocoa come with. Gabriel doesn't even give him too much shit for stopping and reading information placards and trying to find beautiful things. When Cocoa gets too tired, Sam takes it for a sign to head back for the day. That way, they don't stay in the woods getting soggy and bug-bitten for too long and Sam figures it's also an accurate measure for Gabriel's attention span.

They hop from hotel to hotel, as they go, and spend a lot of the rest of their time on the beaches. Or drinking under umbrellas _near_ the beaches.

Sam wades out into the Pacific the first few times, kicking into the surf and digging his toes into the shifting sand. It's strong and warm, more so than he remembers. And feeling it, standing out there, that isn't quite like Sam remembers, either. This doesn't make him feel at ease. It makes him a little sad. He doesn't go in the ocean much after that.

So they switch it up, between drinking and some mild sightseeing and a lot of simply driving inland and stopping for snacks at whatever place looks interesting. They stop in some wide open places, to play with the dog and get her to chase them around. They focus on her sometimes, interact through her sometimes. But not all the time.

Gabriel doesn't get restless like Sam thinks he will and, after a while, he realizes he's been thinking of Gabriel like a child with ADHD. It strikes him heavy and like something that should have been expected, like the too-warm ocean: Gabriel isn't hyperactive or twitchy. He never really was. He was sauntering, mocking, but not bouncy. Maybe a little bratty, but not some kind of clown.

Gabriel is watching him.

He almost wishes Gabriel would help, would tell him where interesting things are or tell him where he wants to go or what he wants to do. Or even demand that they head south faster or back east. But he doesn't contribute other than to pick up the bills. Mostly, he watches.

He's probably not even paying anything, really. Probably using some angelic trick, but Sam can't decide whether to kick up a fuss over it or if even mentioning it will bring this to a conclusion faster. It seems fragile, like he's waiting for Gabriel to make some outrageous move. He doesn't want to drop some unspoken challenge and bring out the wrath in him and he doesn't want to deal with his life becoming some sort of funhouse if he really ticks him off and lets the trickster loose.

Sam doesn't intentionally instigate anything, then. He lets things happen. Lets their vacation and all their activities just develop naturally.

When Gabriel stands off to the side and watches with an easy smile curling up on his face as Sam and Cocoa play--  
Or when they poke around in some museum and Sam reads off a really interesting fact out loud ('cause he can't help himself, it's like _really_ interesting!)--  
When Sam dries his legs off, walking back up the beach, and comes out of the sun and Gabriel just slides a beer across the table to him--

Gabriel watches, and sits back, and he _sees_ just... _everything_.

The more Sam makes a point of not itching, the more it scratches.

Dean does the same thing to him intentionally, he knows. He doesn't finish a sentence or he just stands off to the side with this all-knowing look. It bothers the shit out of Sam. It makes Sam wanna pick a fight or explode at him, ask him what the fuck his problem is.

They're nearly a week into it already when he finally asks, with no finesse, "What the fuck? Seriously."

Gabriel blinks, tilts his beer bottle in a shrug, like, _what_?

"I just don't get what's with the family vacation vibe," Sam kind of adjusts on his barstool and looks back off, away from the patio and off to the beach, pulls on his bottle of beer. Can't think of anything else to explain his outburst.

Except that he can answer it for himself before he even gives Gabriel a chance.

He remembers that apartment, dark with the shades drawn, no evidence of a girlfriend or boyfriend sharing the space. That long silence inside of it. He never even saw anyone else at the motel in the several hours he was there. And Kali obviously hadn't stuck around. Gabriel hasn't seen any of his brothers or sisters, not even since The Fall.

All he's got is Cocoa. Maybe he thought all he wanted was to be left alone with his dog and his crappy job.  
And maybe he realized he was wrong. Maybe it hadn't occurred to him that he was lonely until Sam showed up.

Sam remembers when Gabriel first told them his real name. The bitterness with which he greeted Cas in the warehouse. The fact that nobody knew who he was, not even in that room full of gods and monsters. And when they did, they killed him for it.

Sam abandons the rest of his beer and returns to his room too early. To take a nap, maybe, or just try to forget some of what he knows.

Gabriel knocks, later. Hours later. Late even for dinner.  
Sam opens the door to him.

"Would you believe I miss my favorite chew toy?" he asks.

"No," Sam tosses his hair a little, leans against the door frame.

"Would you believe me if I said I was trying to get into your pants?"

"Funny way to go about it all this time," Sam crosses his arms over his chest.

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't wanna talk about it?"

"Yeah. Funny way to go about that, too."

"You're a Winchester, I thought feelings were like kryptonite to a Winchester."

He laughs a little, rough. "Wrong Winchester."

"Aaah," he says, as if something deep has been revealed.

Sam only quirks an eyebrow.

"So you wanna talk about why we're here. You wanna talk about my feelings. So you _care about my feelings_." Gabriel puts his hands to his chest lightly. "You _care_ about me," fluttery eyelashes, pouty lips, a dreamy little sway.

The fact that Sam can't come up with anything in response, not even to this badly-played sarcasm, feels a bit like paralysis. He even feels his face stick half-way between a mocking grin and a grimace.

Gabriel notices and drops the act.

He clears his throat. "Lemme take you out to dinner. Cocoa ran her little heart out, she's asleep."

So no dog as a buffer, even.

Sam almost thinks he should say no, go to bed himself.

Instead he leaves the door wide while he grabs his jacket and keys.

Since they've been walking around with Cocoa, it's been best to cruise the food trucks at night, just eat wherever they stand and pass the safe bits down to her to share.

Tonight, it being just the two of them, they go to an actual restaurant. A family restaurant, Honduran, judging by the flags hanging inside. It had looked warm and half-way to packed when they passed by in the car.

They get a table next to a window and the dining room steadily fills up around them through their first drinks.

Sam powers through three beers before the food even gets to the table. It's almost like Gabriel's intentionally keeping quiet and making it awkward, watching him drink.

Well, he's been doing that for days, now. Watching Sam drink. But on occasion he'll ramble or watch the tv if there's one hanging over the cabana's bar, or he'll watch other people or lead the way into a conversation about some historical book Sam's read.

He hasn't looked like he's been actively _making trouble_ up until now.

When the fourth beer bottle clacks down on the table, Sam pauses. Squints.

"Why are you trying to get me drunk?"

Gabriel finally lifts his own soda to sip at once and shrug, wide-eyed.

"Gabriel," Sam says, flat.

"What?"

"I'm a little _seasoned_. You know that's gonna take a while."

Gabriel shakes his head like he doesn't have any idea what Sam's on about.

He catches him the next time Sam takes a swallow. Gabriel stares into his eyes while Sam tries not to reciprocate, lifting his beer. Gabriel says, deadpan, stare still super intense, "There's something on your back."

Sam chokes on the half-sip he just took. He sets the beer down and wipes his chin with a napkin and has to make an actual effort not to sweep his hand over his shoulder.

His voice is a tiny bit strained from choking when he says, "If anyone's Donna Noble it's not me, pal."

"I knew your geeky ass watched _Who_ ," Gabriel shakes his head, still strangely serious.

"You're the one who made the joke," Sam points out.

"It's actually not a joke. There's something on your back. It's not a giant, dimension-bending beetle, but it's been hanging out with you since you showed up and it's creeping me out."

Sam clunks his elbows down onto the table and rubs his eyes. He's been doing that a lot lately.

"Why do you wanna die, Sam?"

His eyes are closed under his fingers where he's scrubbing at them. His face doesn't flinch. He knows his tells and doesn't have a problem suppressing them with his face mostly concealed.

He wants to say he doesn't know what Gabriel's talking about.  
Then he wants to tell him to butt out.  
Then he can't actually say anything.

It's been months since Gadreel left him with this knowledge. Longer since he's been on the brink of stepping through the veil. Since that slow conversation with Death, who was accepting of Sam's decision, even respectful of him.

Sam doesn't say anything. When he's schooled his face, blanked out his eyes enough, he drops his hands back to the table, leans over his arms, and reaches for his beer again.

"People who have come back, they've got a different look to them. You've got that. People who have actually come face-to-face with Ol' Death Himself? They've got a weight they carry around. People who tried to die? People who wanna die? They're a little different. The way you carry it, Sam, the way it sits on your back looks like _agony_. It's probably another Those-Meddling-Winchesters story, but I can't imagine how just being near your brother makes that weight heavier. I've seen you these past few days. Every time you start to enjoy yourself or lose yourself, you close your eyes and you look for the weight and you haul it right back onto your shoulders again. Like you want it to snap your spine and bring you down and let you die."

Hearing it sounds awful. It sounds overdramatic. He hadn't known he'd been so brooding or he would have hidden it better.

But he's on vacation. He doesn't want to have to hide. He wanted to be able to carry it without turning around and seeing Dean's face each time he did.

Sam feels his jaw clench once but then he exhales, breathes out, lets it go. So Gabriel noticed. So what? Angels can see souls. He can see how many pieces Sam has been cracked into. Why the hell is he even asking? It's obviously just another burden of the world that he and Dean have sat themselves with instead of bothering everybody else.

He drinks in silence and watches the other people in the dining room.

"You know the last time I heard my own name before I told it to you?" Gabriel asks. "Eons. It had been thousands of years since someone had called me by my real name. And you asked. And I gave it to you. This isn't idle harassment, Sam. It never has been. I know you got stuck with my family's problems and it wasn't fair. It wasn't something you asked for. I'm grateful."

Gabriel stops so suddenly that Sam's eyes finally skid over and stop on him. He looks tense.

"I'm grateful that you fixed it. Without killing my brothers. And--"

"You don't _owe me_ kindness. Or company. Or whatever this is," Sam snaps in a hushed tone, almost hisses, leaning across the table.

"You're right," Gabriel glares. "I don't. I want you," Gabriel says. "I've _wanted_ you, I think, for a while now. Objectively, you're a catch. And then you showed up and... I... have never been so horny."

"Christ," Sam rolls his eyes, decompresses from the tension, "Yeah. Thanks."

"Sorry," Gabriel says like he's not at all sorry, like he's exhausted of repeating himself. "You're smart, even for," he waves his hand vaguely, "who you are and what you do for a living. And you're attractive, Sam. Body and soul. You're beautiful. Doesn't mean I don't still wanna fuck up your face for existing sometimes, just that I'd rather jump your bones first."

"All this flattery clearly runs in the family," Sam starts to mock, remembering the way Lucifer used to think when they were sharing a skull.

Gabriel cuts him off. "Not the same thing. If you don't believe me, then I invite _you_ to come inside of _me_ and not the other way around."

That was unexpectedly explicit. Sam kind of side-eyes the crowd around them.

"Nobody here speaks English," Gabe waves him off. "Or if they do, they're too busy to care."

"When did this become about sex?"

"It was always about sex, from the minute you showed up. It's a long road into your heart, so I brought a dog. You're the type, I can tell; you're a sucker for dogs. I totally got you."

"No you don't."

"Yeah I do."

"Fuck," Sam drops his head into his hands. "This is not happening."

"I was ready to run the long game, but if you insist, that's all I'm saying. You wanna know why I'm here. I did it all for the--"

"Outdated term for sex."

"It rhymes with 'cookie' though and if nothing else, I can approve of that," he winks.

"Whiplash," Sam says, dazed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt the angst. If you finally wanna tell me why it is you think you'd prefer to be _dead_ , we can drop the flirting and return to that topic."

"I wasn't flirting with you."

"Hard to get. My favorite game."

"Jesus," Sam hisses and scrubs a hand down his face again.

The waiter finally comes back around with their food. Sam's about to ask for to-go boxes so he can end this torture when it finally sinks in, crawls up his arms in goosebumps and closes over his head like a vat of molasses and he zones out on the thought: the flirting is secondary. Gabriel honestly wants to know. He's been observing, he's been taking care of the three of them, himself, Sam, and Cocoa. He's been letting Sam go his own way and only following. Never directing.

He cares. Gabriel cares.

It's an unsettling feeling and, as Sam tries to move on to picking through the food on his plate, it hangs there, at the bottom of his chest like a rock. Or like another boulder. A third stone to pile up inside of himself atop the two realities he already carries every moment of every day:

-That he shouldn't still be alive.  
-That he can no longer trust his small family; he and Dean are broken.

Gabriel isn't helpful. He doesn't open any new topics so Sam is forced to just sit there, trying to enjoy his food, trying to slow down his drinking, meanwhile feeling every ounce of those weights inside of himself.

Sam seals his lips. He doesn't give Gabriel anything else to work with and, since Gabriel's focus isn't wavering, no other topics are offered up for conversation. He only asks if Sam wants to walk around town before they head back, after they eat. Sam doesn't. And Gabriel takes the keys to drive them to the hotel.

The clock radio in the room Sam sets for his usual wake-up time, but he sets one too-early alarm on his phone. He considers it for a while before he does it. If he were to get up early, check out, and ditch Gabriel, the only thing he thinks he'd be losing is this new burden. He doesn't want to think about it. He never asked for Gabriel's attention and he doesn't want his concern, now.

He doesn't want to answer his question. Sam doesn't need to explain out loud how it is that he's cheated the system, found himself alive so often when he expected to be dead. A long time ago, when he found out that Lucifer was aiming to climb into him, he had to accept that he was special. That mortality would bend its rules around him for his family name and his blood and the strings of fate that came together to form his fucked-up destiny. He couldn't simply turn his back on all that was gonna happen. He was okay at running, but running didn't snap destiny's neck. Fighting did.

He asks himself if he's running now and assures himself he isn't.

Life and death don't hang in the balance here. Only, what? A tentative friendship? Or whatever it is that Gabriel thinks he's fostering here. Some kind of trust. Or. Something. Between fuck buddies and comrades-in-arms.

He'll go down to the Texas coast, instead. He'll restart his vacation there, make it a shorter one, then return to Kansas and get back to work. He'll truly clear his head without the promise of Gabriel's meddling hanging in the air.

 

So, then, of course, Gabriel shows up even before his earlier alarm. Coffee in hand, once again.

 

Sam lets him in while he pulls on some pants and shoes, then follows him down to the continental breakfast buffet. He decides he can think about leaving while Gabriel gives him some time by himself to shower.

But looking up at him over their waffle stacks, he knows Gabriel would only hang out in his room and watch his television while he's in the bathroom.

He knows, somehow. He's reading it on Sam like the thing on his back. Like the great wide parts of him that think he's already dead, or as good as, or that just want it to be over.

He blinks down, fumbling with a mini-pak of butter to conceal the fact that tears have sprung into his eyes. He doesn't know why. He hasn't cried over his fate before. It happens and he stands up and fights it.

He's lying down in its path, now, or trying to. And he hasn't let emotions surface in a while. Maybe that's why it's brimming in his eyes right now. He's thinking too much about it. He doesn't want to be thinking about it.

He sniffs it back, tosses his hair out of his eyes and rises to get another cup of coffee.

Gabriel still doesn't say anything.

They drive around all morning and Sam says maybe they've seen everything worth seeing in this town. He thinks they should pack up, head further south.

Gabriel only nods. His eyes have been steady on Sam, instead of their surroundings, all morning.

When they get back to the hotel parking lot, Sam lets Cocoa Puffs out of the car and meanders around with her. Gabriel stays at his elbow, and just inside of his peripheral vision.

"You wanna head down the coast on your own?" Sam offers. "You can have the car. I'll get another one for myself. You can have a vacation without being chained to where I wanna go," Sam turns to Gabriel, "and what I wanna do. You can go do whatever you want."

Gabriel frowns a little and shrugs it off. "Nah."

Sam turns away. "I donno what you want me to say, Gabriel."

They watch Cocoa sniffing around a planter for a moment.

"I kinda want you to say I didn't save your ass for nothing. I guess I want you to wanna live."

"You don't care," Sam shakes his head.

"Yeah, keep tellin' me what I want. You don't sound like a presumptive asshole at all."

He's been staring at Sam for days, now. His focus on Sam is always too intense. He cares. He cares too much. Cares more than Sam does.

He might.... you know. Mumble something like that.

Gabriel cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders. "You care. Or you wouldn't still be fighting. Hunting."

"Keep telling me what I want. You don't sound like a presumptive asshole at all," Sam echoes, practically growling.

"That's why I'm asking!" Gabriel shouts, throwing out his hands. "That's why I'm _asking_ why it is you wanna die!"

"I never said I did!" Sam shouts back.

"Not out loud! You didn't have to, it's written all over your soul! You're not that dense, Sam!"

"Yeah, well, who said you could fucking read my soul?! Who said you could look all inside me, anyway? What gives you the fucking right?! Just because you're fucking angels you can invade anything you damn well please?!"

Gabriel's brow jumps and he perks, stops shouting. "So this is about angels, then. What did an angel do to you, Sam?"

Sam crosses his arms in front of himself and stomps off after Cocoa. She's been wandering too far; she doesn't like the shouting.

"This isn't about Lucifer," Gabriel says behind him. "And no one can take up residence without permission."

"Speaking of which, who the hell have you been riding around in for centuries?" Sam tosses back over his shoulder, bitter.

"This was rebuilt for me, no one was in it at the time. Don't change the subject," Gabriel says, following.

Sam's interest perks. "That's like what happened with Anna."

"The thing that I just said about changing the subject, Sam?"

Sam scratches his nose and keeps his back to Gabriel. "Do you know," he hesitates. "Do you know an angel named Gadreel?"

Cold creeps into Gabriel's voice the same way it does up Sam's spine at the thought of him. "Yes," he says, low, drawn out.

Sam tucks his hair behind his ears. "When all the angels fell, he came down, too. He was injured. He promised Dean he'd heal the both of us."

He can almost hear the gears working in Gabriel's head, "Heal you from what?"

Well, if he explains that, then he has to explain the trials. He has to explain why he stopped them.

Sam stays quiet.

"So you're telling me-" Gabriel pauses. "So you're saying Gadreel healed you two up-"

"Not Dean. Me and. And Gadreel."

"Gadreel was injured," Gabriel works out, "And you were. Separate events."

Sam still doesn't turn, keeps his eyes on Cocoa. The way she approaches new things is nearly methodical. Caution, less caution, _less caution_ , pleased, tail-wagging interest.

"Gadreel was injured," Gabriel repeats. "And you were? And he said he'd heal the both of you from the inside? And," Gabriel thinks for a moment. "When he climbed in and you found out what a snot-nosed, careless little _brat_ he is, you told him to leave...? And he wouldn't," he concludes, tentative, but edging towards angry.

Sam rubs his head. He hadn't even known Gadreel was in him. The angel was controlling his mind. And he was doing it at Dean's request. And then he'd used Sam's body to kill--

Sam goes forward and tugs Cocoa up into his arms. He turns and crosses back to Gabriel. Gabe looks pissed, livid; the same way Cas would look at the mention of Gadreel's name. He'd find it somewhat satisfying at any other time.

He puts the dog in Gabriel's arms and all he says is, "No." Then turns back toward the hotel.

He grabs some stuff, then takes the car back north a little ways and goes to the beach for the rest of the day, alone. Gabriel doesn't follow him. Sam doesn't really enjoy it, just swims until he's exhausted.

When he gets back to the hotel, he sets another alarm before settling down to sleep. Just for a few hours.

«»

Sam makes another attempt to leave unnoticed, in the middle of the night. It's 2:40 a.m. and there's the sound of the television as he passes Gabriel's hotel door, heading through the hallway and out of the building.

Immediately outside of where he exits, the SUV is pulled up to the end of the sidewalk.

Which is curious. Disconcerting, even.

As he approaches, the windows roll down and Cocoa pops her head out of the back, panting, looking pleased to see him.

"Get in, loser, we're going hunting," Gabriel says from the driver's seat, and starts the car up.

"You're kidding me," Sam says to himself, bags dropping from his shoulders to the ground.

"Put your shit in the back," Gabriel points, demanding, "And get in," he points at the passenger seat.

Defeated, Sam gathers his things again and hauls them into the trunk. He makes note of a heavily-packed, bulky black trash bag taking up the seat next to Cocoa. He doesn't touch it, only turns in his seat, as they start moving, to grab her and pull her into his lap. She licks his face while he cuddles and holds her and thinks about what a dick her owner is and how many times his poor dog has had to sit through rewatches of _Mean Girls_.

They drive out of town. Sam only asks once, "A hunt? Were you serious?" and when he gets no response, doesn't give Gabriel the further satisfaction. He just stays silent.

When he finally parks the car, they've stopped in a small shopping center where all the windows are dark.

Gabriel turns off the car. "Do you have the Kurdish blade?"

"Uhm. No. Dean's got it. I've got a spare angel sword?"

"Bring it," Gabriel gets out and opens up the back.

"What about Cocoa?"

"Bring her, too. She knows what she's doing."

Gabriel throws the trash bag over his shoulder and starts walking around back of the shopping center. Sam hears him _sloshing_ as he walks away.

He opens the back door and helps Cocoa to the ground. She enthusiastically runs after Gabriel and Sam follows once he's grabbed some more ammo and the shining silver blade

They find Gabriel stooped in the shadows and observing a shady-looking bar across a narrow service road. "This would be easier if I could fly," he grouses, but then darts as best he can through the shadows of surrounding trees and dumpsters toward the corner of the building. It's old and shabby, two stories, windows dark this early in the morning. When he gets there, Gabriel motions impatiently for Sam to run his ass over.

Sam sighs and lets go of Cocoa so she can speed over first. Then Sam makes it over, crouching in the darkest spots he can reach, gliding through the night in-between, only a sliver of moon to give his movements away.

At the back of the building, Gabriel climbs a half-stack of pallets to the top of the low wall surrounding the building's dumpster. He uses this position to jump to the short overhanging area that extends out over the smoking patio, at the side-entrance of the bar. He motions for Sam to hand up the bag and then follow him. Sam nods. He grabs the garbage bag and-- fuck. It's heavy with an uneven weight. A water weight. He lifts it as high as he can and Gabriel reaches down to retrieve it with ease.

It's easier for Sam, with his height, to get on the patio roof. When he's there, Gabriel mimes for him to give him a leg up to climb to the top of the building.

Sam grabs his arm first and hauls him close to whisper quietly, "What about Cocoa?"

Gabriel shrugs, dismissive, waving the words away.

Sam rolls his eyes and sighs. He helps Gabriel scramble up to the roof with his heavy load.

There's an access door up here so they must have avoided the inside of the building for whoever might still be in the bar.

Gabriel drops the bag and unties the top, then he looks over the edge and whistles low, once, for Cocoa's attention. She spots him and he leads her to the front face of the building.

"Speak, Cocoa!" Gabriel rasps.

Cocoa barks. They make this exchange with increasing volume over the next minute as Sam looks over the edge, anticipation building in his gut. Soon Cocoa starts to growl. She growls and barks and barks and growls and Sam can hear her collar jingling as she runs and bops around, back and forth in front of the front door.

Then all she lets out is one long snarl and they hear the door swing open below.

Gabriel darts back to the bag and hauls it closer to the edge of the roof. He yanks the top open and inside is a mass of multi-colored balls--

No. Not balls. Balloons. Water balloons.

"Gear up and get ready to fire," Gabriel says low as, below them, one, two, three men exit the bar and crowd menacingly close to Cocoa.

Sam can't fucking believe this. Gabriel's gonna get Cocoa stomped to death just so he can prank some poor fools?

He eyes him, incredulous, and Gabriel only grins, then starts lobbing water balloons toward the ground.

The first one to make contact only grazes the second guy's ball cap off his head and then explodes on the ground beyond. The second one explodes on the back of his neck where he's suddenly stopped.

And then, SCREAMING.

And boiling flesh. The water running down the back of the guy's jacket and him clawing at the back of his head, stumbling sideways to look up.

The other two men startle and turn. Look up.  
And their eyes turn black.

Holy _fuck_.  
Holy water balloons.

Sam turns and grabs as many balloons as he can and starts hurling them at the men.

Each man starts to writhe in pain, their skin smoking and steaming, Cocoa still barking. One of the men turns to kick her out of the way, howling in rage, only she latches on to his ankle and starts mauling as best as she can. He screams even more.

She can't take much of his flailing and stomping, so as soon as she loses her grip she turns and runs off across the parking lot and into the nearby brush.

Without her to distract him, the demon dodges another balloon by flinging himself toward the building and then clambers inside.

Gabriel is laughing his head off watching the other demons writhe in pain, below. Sam knows the third is heading for the stairs so he throws one final balloon, aimed to explode on the first guy's ass, then turns, drawing his angel blade. He waits by the access door, at the ready, and when the demon bursts through it running, he lunges. They grapple for a minute until Gabriel comes up from behind and smacks a balloon to explode in his face. The demon screams one final time and then gurgles as Sam's sword takes the life out of him.

Sam lets the body go and, against his own permission, he finds himself returning Gabriel's maniacal grin for a long moment.

They don't notice the shouting below has stopped until they hear stomping on the stairs coming up. Gabriel grabs some of the last water balloons and hurls them down the dark stairwell. One of the demons cries out but the other comes hurtling out of the dark at them. Gabriel goes to toss a balloon at close range, but squeezes too hard and it bursts in his hand. Sam steps up behind the demon and grabs him by the jacket, swinging him around.

He's flung off the demon by an invisible force before he can raise the blade. The third guy, barreling up the stairs now, had raised a hand to fling him toward the edge of the roof. Gabriel has enough time to distract him with another balloon hit before he has to draw his blade and shiv the guy recovering in front of him.

The final demon shakes off the holy water burn, stumbling, but not in enough time to dodge a tackle from Sam. They roll across the roof until Sam has his feet under himself again. The demon claws at his arms as Sam drags him over to the trash bag and kicks him into it, stomping the back of his head into the remaining pile of balloons, exploding holy water over his neck and shoulders. Sam keeps him there with a boot to the throat as Gabriel rounds to nail him into the roof with one stab of his angel blade.

Sam stands over the body, breathing hard, but feeling fucking triumphant.

Gabriel's wide smile back at him lights up the whole goddamn night.

«»

Cocoa comes running back out of the bushes, tail wagging, when Gabriel simply calls to her. She looks as thrilled with the hunt as they are. Gabriel rolls around with her on the parking lot pavement, playing at tackling each other and getting his face licked and telling her she's a good, good girl.

Sam watches, cracking open a beer from one of the coolers inside, and sitting down on the porch railing.

He moves to sit on the steps as Cocoa, done with romping around, approaches him and waggles her tail. He hauls her into his lap and repeats Gabriel's praises of her.

Gabriel disappears inside for a time and all Sam can hear is the occasional footstep and creaking door. Then he descends with the remains of the garbage bag. He juggles the four remaining balloons until they fall and burst on his hands and head and Sam allows himself to sit back and watch and laugh.

Gabe finally settles next to him on the steps and takes the beer bottle out of his hands to steal a few pulls.

"I have a question," he says, offering the beer back. Sam waves it off, so he polishes the drink off and tosses the bottle high into the air in front of him to burst with a pop on the pavement. Sam likes that. Maybe they can keep throwing things. Maybe they can throw all the rest of the bottles in the bar from the roof, too. Watch the glass shatter and sprinkle down everywhere.

Then again, maybe it wasn't a demon bar and the owners will be back in the morning.

"For me or for the universe in general?" Sam idly wonders, scritching Cocoa's belly.

"I wanna know what you want to do with the rest of your life."

Sam frowns at the sudden intrusion. It _feels_ like an intrusion, but the night is quiet and the pace is suddenly a hundred times slower than it was a half hour ago when he didn't know why he was crawling up on a roof. He feels like he ought to answer that much for Gabriel, at least.

So he considers it. He takes a while, so Gabriel gets up, gets two more beers, and returns. When he settles down again, he rephrases it as a proper question: "What do you want to do with your life, Sam?"

A long time ago he stopped believing he could do _anything and everything_ with his life. He thinks of that as an idea for youth alone. As you grow, your life narrows. He could still do and be several things. But he could no longer be _anything_. What he'd become, now, would be limited by education, social position, location, and notoriety.

He's dead on the records. He lives off the grid. He's got a brother he still needs even if he doesn't wanna feel chained to him. He can't live outside the country where he won't speak the language or have as much knowledge about dodging the authorities. He never finished college.

Does anything he desires still exist within the shrinking parameters of his life?

He kind of wants this. Wants a dog and wants a quiet night after a good bit of exercise. Wants beer and good company.

He doesn't wanna hurt anymore. He doesn't want this life to have amounted to nothing.

"I can't turn my back on all this. That's never worked."

"But is it what you want? Because if it's what you want, you keep trying it until it works. Even if you're still trying to get it right when you're 80," Gabriel breathes over the top of his beer bottle just to hear the noise between sips of it.

No. He doesn't want to ignore the agonies he'd be leaving behind. He wants to stop those things. What if stopping monsters from destroying the world takes up the rest of his life and he still doesn't succeed at the end of it?

He doesn't know.

"What the hell kind of a question is that?"

"One they ask you starting at the age of four," Gabriel points out. "And you can't answer it."

"What if I just wanna fumble through things? What if I don't have a goddamn plan?"

"We'll start off light, then: Sam, do you wanna _live_ for the rest of your life?"

"As opposed to what? Die for the rest of my life?"

Gabriel shakes his head and drinks the rest of his beer. He tosses this bottle into the parking lot, too.

"Why do you wanna die so much," he says with disgust, not even a question.

"Just 'cause you got brought back, everything's worth living for? What even is this? What are you even _talking_ about?" Sam scoffs.

"You saved humanity. You saved your entire planet."

"I didn't even kill the bad guys!"

"For which I have to thank you," Gabriel says. "So thank you. On behalf of my species, thank you for not killing my brothers. If you weren't a dead outlaw you'd be a celebrity hero. Why does that make you want to die?"

Sam pets Cocoa one last time before putting her to rights and then setting her on the porch to wander around and nose inside where the front door's propped open.

"It's the other things. I'm not supposed to still be around."

"Fucking look at me and say that again," Gabriel says. "Say the same thing about your brother. And mine. 'Cause I'm assuming they wouldn't still be alive without you. You lay down your life for Dean and for Cas, I'm sure you haven't broken that pattern since the last time we met. And you think you're supposed to die every time you step in front of a bullet for someone else? You think it's about time something did you in?"

Sam's getting pushed to tell the whole story. And he doesn't want to. He wants to let it rest.

But it won't rest. He knows that. It will fester, get infected. It won't heal. If he ignores it, it won't go away. He's gonna resent himself more, Dean more. He's gonna alienate himself from Dean, even if he still loves him, heart and soul. He'd meant what he said to Dean about him being selfish, about them needing to stop the act. He'd meant it at the time, hurt and angry. And as time passes, he means it less and less. He's still hurt. He wants Dean to grow up with him, to change and make progress, for their lives to expand in different directions rather than rolling down this repetitive path. He doesn't wanna feel this way anymore.

After a while, Gabriel finishes his beer. He says, quite simply, "You're a good man. You grew up better than anyone ever expected. And I like you. And I don't want you to think, for the rest of your life, that you don't deserve to be alive and smiling and loving things. I'm _not_ a good man and I feel like I've got the the right to those things."

Sam hangs over his knees and plucks at his shoelaces. "I wanted to die for something meaningful. And Dean stopped me. I just wanted the end of me to mean something."

"To mean what?"

Sam sighs. "The end of Hell, in this case. It was gonna shut the gates of Hell forever. But Dean stopped me on the last step."

Gabriel snorts. It sounds very much out of place with the intensity of the conversation.

"Don't tell me. You knuckleheads got ahold of the tablets."

Sam turns his head slowly. "You knew about those?"

"How many did you find," he says, like he's barely curious.

Sam sits up straight. "There were three. One about the Leviathan. One for Heaven, one for Hell."

"There are more than that. You wanna know where another one is?" Gabriel sips his beer, casual as ever.

Sam blinks. "Where?" he demands.

"In Hell. Stuck to the mud at the bottom of the lake of fire. It's a break-open-in-case-of-emergency tablet. It reopens the gates of Hell any time it's necessary. Hell is never closed off. Hell is necessary for creation. It'll never be closed. All part of Pop's plan."

"What."

"Closing off Hell would have been meaningless. Your death would have been _meaningless_. Just like all death is. Life is meaning, Sam. There's no honor, no dignity in death. You just stop. And whatever you are after -- if you become anything -- is either a happy little echo of yourself," Gabriel points up, "or a bitter little echo of yourself," Gabriel points down. "The only you that means anything is the one who's alive right now. So I'll keep you. Every fucked up, super-sized molecule of your gigantic ass."

Meaningless.

He would have been more meaningless than he even imagined. It would have meant nothing, even if he died for it, because God wills that Hell remain open.

Fuck's sake.  
He kinda wants to lie down.

He wants to call up Dean and tell him and for them both to sit on the line silent until they dissolve into laughter and desperate tears. It's all so fucking meaningless.

Hell will be open forever. All they can do is beat it back.

Well. That's not exactly true. They know how to cure demons, return them to mortality.

So they could, in theory, also empty Hell of its population. Kill them or cure them.

There have got to be thousands of demons. Who knows how many. Maybe millions.

They didn't let the world end and now people are gonna be fighting demons until the end of time. Or the next true apocalypse.

"You need a glass of water or something? I don't know what I'm supposed to do if you pass out on me," Gabriel sounds sort of wary.

Sam shakes himself, a desperate laugh bubbling up. "I can't fucking believe this."

"Tricks run in the family, Sam. My Dad's a master at 'em. The other tablets all come in sets, too. You know. Just for the record. Before you get any bright ideas."

"Waitaminute--" Sam's hand snaps out and he clutches Gabriel's knee. "Then there's one that works against the angel tablet. It can undo what Metatron did to Cas--to. To all of you."

"In theory. You wanna die for that one, too? Because then I won't tell you where it is."

Sam's about to scoff. But if he's dead.  
If he's dead. Gabriel's right. That's useless. It'll be so useless to the future generations. The people who are gonna be battling demons for years to come. Suddenly, they're taking up residence in his head, they're watching him. All the many lives, as yet untouched by the supernatural, who don't know that they're gonna be running from black eyes one day. No matter if Sam-- if _they_ ever got the gates to Hell closed or not.

He saved them. Technically. He didn't let the world end. He jumped into a hole and saved them. Or maybe condemned them to an eternity of fighting the Hordes of Hell. Either way, he's kind of responsible for them.

And after he's gone, they'll be alive depending on whether or not he's around to teach them to fight.

He swallows. It's so much responsibility. Always so much.

His hand drops when Gabriel sets aside his empty beer and stands a little to scoot over. He sits on the top step next to Sam and elbows him. Then grabs his hand and holds it.

"I donno exactly where you are right now but there's nothing on your back anymore. You wanna go hunting again?"

"Yeah," Sam says kind of dazed. He does. He wants to keep hunting. He wants to show other people how to hunt, how to stay alive. How to make this job not be a death sentence. How to keep their fellow man alive.

Fucking water balloons. He hasn't had this much fun on a hunt--

But he did have fun on hunts, sometimes. With Dean beside him, grinning wide, the both of them just _whooping so much ass_ , panting laughter and bloody smiles.

Gabriel interrupts his train of thought. "I think, if you know where my brother is, I'd like to help him. I'd like to help us all."

"No more saving your own sweet ass?" Sam asks.

"Kinda just wanna go where you are, to be honest," Gabriel admits. "I have this ridiculous crush on you and you just said I've got a sweet ass, so I'm almost in. Can't give up now."

"Jesus," Sam rolls his eyes and shakes his hand loose.

"Are we gonna make out or what?"

"Or what," Sam answers. "I think I gotta make a phone call. Then maybe. One more day on the beach, okay? A little further south? I have a feeling the weather's gonna be better tomorrow."

"Fine," Gabriel grumbles. "Go on and pretend you can still resist my charm. I took you on the perfect date, you're gonna admit it sooner or later."

"Find Cocoa, you moron," Sam is starting to believe, the way Gabriel looks at him, the way he was insistent about this, that he actually does want him. So he starts pressing at the limits of it. He stands up and kicks him in the leg a little, just enough to annoy. "Get up. Let's go throw liquor bottles off the roof."

Gabriel almost trips over himself scrambling to grab the trash bag and fill it it up with merchandise. He takes a shot of each before they pitch it at the ground and cackles almost the whole time.

«»

They pack up their hotel rooms and head down the coast some more, to where the weather's pretty much guaranteed to be less of rain and more of blue skies. Gabriel makes Sam stop at a 24-hour superstore to pick up a couple single-serving pieces of cake. He goes through the line still soaked from the water balloons he'd juggled and just smiles at anyone who stares too long.

They eat in the car. Sam tries to balance his cake around the steering wheel but ends up just letting Gabriel hand him, then _feed him_ forkfuls of it, skeeving out on the act entirely. Watching Sam eat and making these _moans_.

Sam finally bats his hand out of the way while he's trying to switch lanes. "God, Gabe, stop it."

"No, no, please. Just lick the last of this icing off and I'll leave you alone."

"I'm kind of driving here-"

"Multitask, you're a fucking adult!"

"Clearly the only one present," once he's settled back in the right lane, he yanks the fork out of Gabriel's hand and shoves it in his mouth, pulling it out slowly, and letting rip a rolling moan, despite the icing being too-sugary, almost gritty on his tongue.

"Fucking fuck. Shit," Gabriel says.

Check-in times don't seem to apply to Gabriel so they're settled into a new beach-front hotel around dawn.

Personal space seems to no longer apply to him, either, because he and Cocoa come over to Sam's room right after dropping off their stuff next door.

Both rooms have a small patio that opens onto the sand. Sam watches Gabriel sit there, the sky lightening beyond him. They're on the wrong side of the building for a full sunrise but Gabriel seems intent upon it, anyway. Sam lets him sit out on his porch undisturbed while he brushes his teeth and shrugs into a new shirt. He's been up a while, since he tried to sneak out of their last hotel, and since then they've been through an entire hunt, but he's not tired. Still a little keyed up, in fact, despite their heavy discussion after the battle.

Must be all the sugar.

When Sam slides open the glass door, Cocoa trots back off the beach, where she was exploring, to come accept her due praise and attention from him before continuing to nose around.

Sam picks her up and hugs her to his chest, rubs her, and sets her down.

Sunrise on the beach makes him miss Dean a little. He's not ready to settle down in the quiet and recover from the hunt. He kind of wants to be with somebody. Maybe he wants to go out and eat; possibly some massive breakfast that Dean would be proud of. He's sure they can swing it.

He's going to ask Gabriel what he thinks of the notion, and then stops. Because living hour-to-hour has been fine while on this little vacation, but the weight in his center, the only thing that's still threatening to pull him under (even if he knows, now, that he wants to live, and how) is living day-to-day.

The Future, in all its horror and glory. That ugly question about what he _wants_ to do with his life, not just what he feels he _should_ do. Whatever he thinks may have to happen when this holiday is over with. And who will be there to make the future something he looks forward to. He lets it burst out of him in this form: "You wanna go east with me tomorrow?"

Gabriel's look of surprise is mild, but it's still there.

"I just didn't know if you wanted to head back north or. If. I donno. If you maybe wanted to." Fuck. He's not sure where to go with this, how heavily or lightly to put it. "See, we have this place. It's home, really. It's in Kansas and I was thinking, we could find-"

"Okay," Gabriel says. "Sure."

Sam smiles. "Good. Okay," and he turns back to the nighttime getting chased away over the ocean. He can work on the rest in small steps. He doesn't have to do this all at once. Tomorrow being something to look forward to is enough. It's enough good before breakfast.

"Yeah, I'm just gonna go for it," Gabriel says, before he's ducking in front of Sam and pulling his head down to kiss his mouth.

There's a shot of fire darting to Sam's belly and, much as he knows he'll get mocked for it, he gives right in. Doesn't even put up a pretense of indecision, just opens up and lets that inevitable, sweet taste in as if he'd been jonsing for it and just indulges, clutches Gabe closer with hands in his hair. His mind empties of all thought except, 'god yeah, kiss me,' and he'd say it if he had air to do so. He wants this.

He's so awake. The fog is miles behind them. He _wants this_.

Gabriel teases so well. Pulls his mouth back a little and only lets their lips press. Sam's mouth opens, hot and seeking and Gabriel only allows the touch of them so Sam knows he's smiling into the chase. Then he lets Sam collide with him, getting hot in an easy sort of way for how Sam's tongue enters him.

You can cling to a big guy and he'll haul you around if you want. Gabriel indicates he's okay with this by swinging his arms over Sam's shoulders and just hanging on. Sam gets him up against the patio rail and lifts him to sit so he can slide between Gabriel's knees and fit them together properly.

Sam's hands span Gabriel's back, sweep up and down, liking the subtle muscle and power he feels there. He can't resist the draw of that. No matter how much he shies away from direct power, now, Sam still finds power to be sexy under his hands. When his partner has power over him, he couldn't _be_ more turned on. There's a lot inside of Gabriel. There's heavenly force in there, even if it's been muted. He goes wherever Gabriel's hands direct and takes all his cues from that smaller body. He wants to be wrestled around and that's what he gets. Gabriel presses forward when it's time to stagger Sam back, against the sliding glass door.

"Tell the puppy to stay," he demands on a breath, before diving back in.

"Mff," Sam wrestles his mouth away while scooting the door open with his butt. "Stay, Cocoa, stay," he manages before losing his mouth to Gabriel again.

Gabriel's the one who hops down and closes the glass door, then backs Sam up to the bed until his calves hit it. He puts some of his real strength into it to knock Sam over, topple him to the bed and crawl over him.

He spreads Sam out and straddles his waist, unbuttons his shirt, lingering, kissing between each one. When he gets the shirt open, he pins Sam's arms back out because they curve up to try to meet him. Then he does nothing but basically fondle Sam's chest for a long while, applying pressure everywhere but working over and around his nipples lightly until Sam tries to curve into him again. That's when he dips to bite them.

Sam's hands fist in Gabriel's collar and he gasps. The shirt comes loose in his hands some buzzy time later when Gabriel's let go and is moving off of him, out of his grasp.

Gabriel climbs and scoots up against the pillows, props himself up and leans back on them a little. Then he starts opening his pants. "C'mere," says.

Sam doesn't obey outright. He stands and takes the rest of his clothes off before diving on top of Gabriel.

He laughs at Sam's enthusiasm, kissing up and down his jaw and trying to capture his lips again, but he finally catches Sam's face and smiles and says, "How about down here," he nods down at his open jeans.

"Yeah. Okay," Sam says, eyes going hooded. He pulls away a little only to dart back in and feast on Gabe's mouth some more, then lets himself get directed down between his legs. He wraps his left arm around Gabriel's thigh as he simply takes his cock in hand and starts bobbing his mouth down onto it, taking more in a little at a time until he's as far as he can get and sucking, swallowing as well as he's able, unpracticed as he is. While he doesn't know precisely what he's doing, he wants to do it. Like how you don't necessarily like the taste of beer but sometimes, on a hot day, you _want it_. Not water, not an ice cream, not a big frosty, fruity iced drink. A cold, dark brown beer.

He wants this. Right now. He wants sex and he wants someone who wants him. He wants to please someone. He wants to have someone in his mouth and all around him, wants the hands scrubbing the wrong way through his hair and the surprised, rough shouts. He wants to be messy, to get it everywhere and go to sleep smelling heavily of each other.

He wants to know this, what he's feeling right now. The shape of a cock in his mouth and how to be careful with his teeth, gentle with himself while rough with the muscle, the tongue and cheeks. Wants to feel the contours and taste the salt tang of another person. All these things he wants, he's getting.

There could be more.

He pulls off, reaches up, finds Gabriel's hands, and finds them eager to sink into his hair again. And down he goes some more, this time tonguing up and down, getting everything spit slicker and wet.

There's a choked sound and a grip against his scalp. Further down, then. Sam lets Gabriel thrust up, but shallow, slow, and slides a hand up, over the softness of his belly. When he looks up, to follow, Gabe meets his eyes, shudders a breath, and warns him that he's gonna lose it.

He keeps watch and Gabriel returns the stare as Sam sucks one final time and rises, climbing up again and sitting over his lap. He lines Gabriel's cock up with his ass and presses it to the crease, riding back against him until Gabriel's hands are back in his hair, urging him down. He shouts into Sam's mouth as he comes against his ass. Curses a long string of "Fuck"s between kisses, riding out the last waves of his orgasm.

Breakfast comes only after Gabriel has had his own chance to dine on Sam, tossing him back against the sheets and tasting everywhere.

«»

Next day, they turn their backs on the coast.

Gabriel actually does come with him. Dodging his repeated requests to stop for some (more) gambling as they exit Nevada, Sam walks right into it:

"So, you have an answer yet?"

"To?"

"What you wanna do with your life. You know, besides me," Sam's sure there's some ostentatious winking involved along with the nudging he gets but he's too busy keeping his eyes on the road to check.

He sighs. "No. Well. I mean. I don't. Um. I don't wanna die. I don't want you to die. Or Dean, or Cas. I don't want demons to take over."

"I wasn't asking for which brand of world peace you preferred, Sam. But, thanks. I'm glad you don't wanna die. I appreciate hearing that I've made at least that much progress."

"I know what I should be doing with my life. And I can do it from the bunker, with all that knowledge we have from the Men of Letters. And sometimes I think I wanna just. I donno. Go after demons with water balloons. Enjoy what we do, where we go. I mean, we don't exactly live on vacation when we travel, and killing things, watching people get hurt- that's no picnic. But it's not served by me hating it. You know?"

"It doesn't get better the more miserable you make yourself."

"Yeah."

"And it doesn't require you to sacrifice yourself," Gabriel adds, just to clarify.

"I know."

"And I guess your goody-goody ass is gonna get me to really help my brothers out for once," he gripes.

Sam smiles. "Gonna have to saddle up with the good guys to ride this."

"Welp," Gabriel rouses Cocoa from the nap she was taking in his lap to set her down in the back seat. "It wasn't a 'you must be at least _this_ tall to ride' joke, but you still get points."

"What do points get me?"

"Road head, probably. But wait 'till Utah. I get really hot when I'm pissing someone off."

"Thanks, Gabe. That explains a lot."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Wolfsheart](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsheart/pseuds/Wolfsheart) for advice on dogs and a light beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone, Tracy was just doing my paranoid ass a solid.
> 
> Inspirational bits: [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-R0-b74Uwo) and [image](http://25.media.tumblr.com/1abdaa3a95bcc00d2a11724779b256d6/tumblr_mldg1uJ3KF1r1v9yqo1_500.jpg).


End file.
